SCOTTSDALE - Brian Pendergast, chief information officer (CIO) for CNA National Warranty Corporation, has been invited to be a panelist at the prestigious CIO Perspectives event in San Francisco on May 16 for senior information technology executives.

“CNA National is heavily investing in our technology architecture and CIO Perspectives is the perfect opportunity to benchmark what we have accomplished,” says Pendergast.

CIOs from Fortune 1000 companies create the agenda and topics that will be discussed in each city. Pendergast will be a participant on the panel, “Balancing Risk with Innovation in Mobility, Social Media and Consumer Technologies.” The panel also features executives from Chevron and Electronic Arts, and is moderated by Maryfran Jonson, editor-in-chief of CIO magazine.

The goal of CIO Perspectives is to empower local CIOs to expand their professional communities and to tap into the knowledge base of their colleagues to solve their most pressing IT/business problems.

“Being able to interact with my peers about best practices, lessons learned, successful strategies and architectures allows CNA National to increase our resources for future developments” says Pendergast. “We value our position as industry leader in providing vehicle service contracts and our technological investments in data analytics, rating automation and infrastructure will ensure we maintain separation from our competitors.”

Last month, CNA National became the first company to be simultaneously named top vehicle service contract provider and top reinsurer by Auto Dealer Monthly’s Dealer’s Choice Awards. CNA National’s technology investments in recent years include creating the CIO position, ongoing hiring within the IT department as well as new “e-business” portal websites for agents and dealerships. CNA National’s attendance at CIO Perspectives is part of its current campaign to increase visibility in the automotive and business industry sectors.